A primer on Island Biogeography
— And the common feaures of decommissioned oil rigs, windfarms, wrecks and artificial reefs
— And the common feaures of decommissioned oil rigs, windfarms, wrecks and artificial reefs
Beaked whale species are thought to be sensitive to noise arising from certain human activities; in 2000, beaked whale strandings were observed coinciding with naval sonar exercises in the Bahamas.
Understanding the distribution and behavior of these species is important to minimize harmful impacts from human uses of the ocean.
A research team from Duke University, Woods Hole, and the Naval Undersea Warfare Center listened for foraging beaked whales and measured ocean features and distributions of prey off the eastern coast of Andross Island in the Bahamas.
Pelvicachromis taeniatus is a dwarf cichlid from West Africa that is occasionally kept as an aquarium fish In this species, females seek to impress potential mates as well by fanning out their large, violet pelvic fin.
The results, published this month in BMC Evolutionary Biology, also suggest male choice can drive females to evolve exaggerated traits, a finding that disputes the traditional belief that sexual selection is a one-way road, allowing only females to affect male appearance.
Andrew Wendruff from the University of Alberta says his one-metre-long, forked-tailed coelacanth was an 'off-shoot' lineage that lived 240 million years ago.